Unbreak My Heart
by mountaindewaeris
Summary: Sometimes when it's broken, it cannot be fixed. Only worsen. Neji/Saku, angsty, rated for suggestive scenes.


A/N: Wow, my first Neji/Saku ficlet _ever! _It may seem this way, but no, I'm NOT anti-Neji/Saku; actually, I support them very much. Inspired by the song by Toni Braxton, "Unbreak My Heart". And, if you can believe it or not, this ISN'T A SONGFIC! Yay! It's only a normal, overly angsty/sad one-shot. Probably a little too "garden variety" when it comes to some one-shots. Interpret that any way you want. I don't own anything, including Neji, Sakura, or the title "Unbreak My Heart". –mountaindewaeris

**Unbreak My Heart**

While she dated Neji, she didn't realize that her heart had never bleated once.

He left her for another: Tenten. "Things aren't working out Sakura," he whispered over the candlelit dinner at his place. "We're not …compatible. Not any longer, at least. I'm sorry."

The words echoed through the crevices of her mind; they ran along her bones and stirred the blood coursing through her veins and brought her heart to full speed.

She couldn't breathe, not at first. She couldn't cry, not even yet. But the salty and bittersweet taste of a fresh and gapping hole forming on the left side of her chest remained present from the night of the dinner to now, a week later. Many nights she dry heaved lonely saliva for hours at a time, hoping to rid herself of the salty taste, of the wicked vermin chewing a hole through her chest, for nothing. Those two displeasures, those two _sins _would remain for the rest of her days.

"It was under…at my…door," she spoke in a hoarse voice to no one, hugging her toilet in another selfish attempt to cleanse herself. At her front door, in the rain, where Neji first asked Sakura to dinner at the ramen shop.

The two had crossed each other's paths, each a stroll through the park. It had begun to rain just moments before, Neji being wise enough to bring a precautionary umbrella, Sakura not so much. He noticed her struggling to keep dry, with her forearms over her head, when he quickly rushed to her side, shielding her with one raggedy black umbrella. Thanking him, he saw her home, regardless of how far it was out of his way, and chatted. Talked, to be more precise. She told him of her crummy job at a local café run by Ino, and he told her of his constant training and meditation progress on the sacred Hyuga clan grounds. She told him of her dream of becoming a nurse, and he told her his only dream was to settle down and have a family, so that Byakugan can be passed on. She pointed out to him how ugly a passerby's shoes were, and he laughed. Upon arrival at her doorstep he "popped the question" for dinner, and she gladly accepted. More evenings of deep sharing and random banter later, he left her. Said they were no longer compatible.

She tossed a few small gifts and now meaningless souvenirs of their love into a large cardboard box, a stain of saliva visible above her right breast on her white cotton tank-top. Her eyes were glazed, uninterested, and robotic in their own design as she carelessly tossed about knick-knack after knick-knack.

One made her stop. A small, porcelain Lucky Cat. She could remember the night of the Konoha Full Moon Festival when he bought her this, he in his navy green Hakama, she in her dark blue one. "Well, it was about time some luck came my way," she smiled; face illuminated and irresistible to Neji in the iridescent moonlight.

"How appropriate now," she mumbled, fingers dancing across the glass's smooth surface.

Her mind flashed across the memory of their first night together. Sakura had never been with anyone, but Neji knew exactly what to do, laying her atop his king size mattress. As he began to unfasten that same Hakama, that same evening, she had whispered "Please, don't hurt me."

"Never." he promised.

"…Never," she repeated, slipping on her coat, still no umbrella in tow on this rainy night as she exited her apartment. Not bothering to lock up before she left, to turn off the lights, she ran down the dark streets towards his house. Most likely he was entertaining _her _tonight, but little did that matter to her, nor did the bruise that had formed over her left breast. Her mind was wild, her pulse struggled, her vision blurred. As she stumbled through the wet and seemingly empty streets, her disorientation grew thicker, and she up lost in the opposite direction of Neji's dwelling. Eventually, she wound up fumbling in the middle of a four-way intersection, fatigue and hunger getting the better of her.

"He was so bloody…" she staggered, remembering volunteering at the hospital in part of becoming a full-fledge medical ninja, rushing to his stretcher after being brutally beaten by an opponent, wrapping up his wounds in a private room.

"He ended up running away before I was through with him," he scowled, enjoying picking his enemy away to nothing during ANBU missions. He didn't seem to care that he was fortunate to still be alive, and she wept in his lap that night.

She groaned audibly.

"He loved… spicy ramen," the memory of the night's meal at the full moon festival came flooding back.

"The spicier the better. It improves the chakra flow." he had said with a straight face though beads of sweat poured down his chiseled features. He played dumb as she laughed until she cried.

She moaned.

"My chopsticks echoed," she stared down at her trembling hands, looking back on the worst night of her life, when Neji casted her aside like last week's sports page to rekindled with an old flame. When she froze and dropped her chopsticks against her plate and listened blindly to their clatter echo off his white walls. She hadn't cried then, nor since.

She cried out, wailing dryly.

"Hey," muttered one of Konoha's late night street urchins. "Think that chick's drunk?"

His companion laughed out loud. "Hell yeah! And she's pretty cute too." the two honed in on their prey right as Sakura's nails dug into her chest and her eyes rolled.

"Thank God the rain finally stopped; I thought it never would. Now we can walk to the restaurant." smiled Tenten, clutching onto Neji's arm.

_Sakura never minded the rain too much, did she? _he pondered when he paced was abruptly halted and his breath quickened in his throat. He recognized that coat sleeve, the pale skin of its owner that shade of pink hair as it laid flat on the concrete in the center of police tape. He pushed and shoved his way through the crowd until he made it to the rim of the yellow tape and his suspicions were confirmed, leaving Tenten behind and forgotten.

"Sakura…" his chest heaved as he stared into her blank green eyes, looking off into a horizon that wasn't there, as the rain water dripped from her irises emulating tears. A saturated crimson puddle of water and blood lay underneath her dead body. In an evidence bag came another familiar sight: a white Lucky Cat figurine. He grabbed hold of a nearby kneeling ANBU who was still inspecting the body, nails digging into the exposed skin.

"What?" the ANBU's frantic but defensive voice rose in aggravated volume.

"What…what happened…" the words were almost voiceless, the words of an abused child. Luckily, ANBU members acquire a keen sense of hearing, and the man understood every word.

"She was called in pretty early this morning by those two hoods," he nodded in the direction of two men with startled and pale faces. "Claim they spotted the girl wandering around aimlessly and confused. When they approached her she suddenly collapsed. Bled for hours before she finally fell to the ground. Lady Tsunade is ordering us to investigate foul play once the body has been taken to the local hospital for autopsy." he stood slowly and shook his head. "Damn punks. They see an innocent cute girl wandering around at night and take full advantage of it…Stabbed right through the heart."

Administrating his Byakugan immediately, Neji confirmed what the fellow ANBU member had prophesized, and determined who the killer of Sakura Haruno, age twenty-two, chunin, whom he still loved, who dreamed of being a nurse and liked the rain, whose nose wrinkled when she laughed was: himself.

Sorry that this story was soo…smalty. I actually see this as more of a random ramble (if you will) then an actual story; a passing thought with no purpose or continuation. Just a thought, basically. Hope I didn't disappoint _too many _readers out there. Sorry! Not proud of this at all. - mountaindewaeris


End file.
